King of Games: Dragonmaid and Melffy

Welcome back to King of Games, where we look at some of the stranger and more unusual Yu-Gi-Oh cards, one or two archetypes at a time. Archetypes in Yu-Gi-Oh are groupings of monsters who have similar thematic elements, support one another, and have magic and trap cards connected to them.

Today I look at two different Archetypes, mainly because I didn’t think either archetype was interesting enough on its own to talk about. We’ll be starting with the Dragonmaid archetype, introduced in the 2019 set Mystic Fighters. So lets see what we are working with….

Oh dear.

Okay so, there is this anime called Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, about this working stiff lady who somehow lands a dragon as her house maid. I don’t know much about it but I know of it. And apparently someone at Konami has also heard of it. Also apparently the creator of the anime saw this card archetype and gave it his seal of approval (That’s what the Yu-Gi-Oh Wikia said, and I’ll take their word for it because why wouldn’t I?), so now we have an entire archetype of dragons turned into Maids. I guess we can roll with this.

Of course the main gimmick of the dragonmaid archetypes is that each maid (except the Chamber Dragonmaid) comes with two otherwise unrelated cards: A human card and a dragon card. If you have the human form out they can turn into the dragon form and back again during their turn. Here we have the Nurse Dragonmaid, who is very….pink, and fluffy. And dedicated to sparkle motion.

I’m guessing the sparkles are going to be a motif with these Dragonmaid cards, as is the fluffiness. I’m starting to wonder if in universe these cards are the result of Seto Kaiba writing some very weird fan fics and Pegasus somehow finding them and making them into cards.

Um, how old are these Dragonmaids again? I mean, I think the Laundry Dragonmaid might be breaking some child labor laws (And don’t give me that “Dragons are thousands of years old” crap. How old is she in dragon years? And if she is an adult why did she turn into a little girl?)

I get the feeling this is supposed to be the head Dragonmaid, since she’s the strongest and she’s a fusion monster (and most of the Dragonmaid cards have mentioned being impervious to effects if you control a fusion monster). I do find it amusing that she’s so powerful that she matches a Blue Eyes in her human form, and in her dragon form she is a bit stronger than a Blue Eyes. This is Kaiba’s OC Waifu.

I kind of like the Kitchen Dragonmaid. She’s sassy looking. Plus I do like a good cook.

That covers the Dragonmaid creatures. Now let’s look at some magic and trap cards.

….Yeah maybe Yu-Gi-Oh isn’t the game for me. I can’t make heads or tails of this. I mean, it lets you summon a fusion monster (IE the House Dragonmaid) and then you can return this card and a dragonmaid to your hand with it. I think that’s how it goes.

Aw, look. They’re having a sleepover.

Also, yeah, I’m calling child services. They are working that Laundry Dragonmaid way too hard. She’s just a kid!

I think the point of this card is setting up getting the Dragonmaid dragon mode cards into play so your human dragonmaids can turn into them later.

Yeah, this is definitely someone’s fanfic idea. Someone has a thing for dragons and maids.

I mean, they seem to enjoy their jobs at the very least. It beats the usual dragon activities I suppose: hoarding gold, destroying villages, eating princesses, or maybe these dragons cashed in their money to buy this big mansion to maintain and they just eat anyone who shows up.

I think this confirms my theory: If this is how they “Welcome” people I hate to see what happens to the intruders. If I came into a manor and got jumped by four dragons, I’d probably make a break for it.

And that’s the Dragonmaid Archetype, one of the more recent, and baffling, Yu-Gi-Oh Archetypes.

The second archetype we will be looking at are the Melffy monsters, showing up in the Rise of the Duelist and the Phantom Rage expansions. This is one of the newest Yu-Gi-Oh archetypes. So new you could go crack a booster pack and see some of these creatures among your cards right now.

…I think I’m going to experience some Phantom Rage.

I mean… what even? Look at this, and look at the Dragonmaid cards above. Would you EVER guess they were from the same game?

Anyway, yeah, the Melffy’s are a bunch of cute pastel animal creatures. I think this is their strongest card, an XYZ monster, and it’s only 2000 attack. These are not power houses.

Okay, we got the cute little kitty.

When you actually read the text, this seems pretty powerful. It doesn’t really specify the level of the monster you pull out and summon, just that it needs to be a beast. The idea is probably to load your deck with powerful beasts, then use the cat here to cheat them out when your opponent does a thing.

And here we have a cute little fox. It even has a heart mark on its chest. These look like they come out of a children’s book about nap time.

And now we got the mommy, who is the other XYZ monster of the lot. She’s weak compared to the other one, but she’s different from XYZ monsters in that instead of removing creatures from her you add them on, and they power her up. So the first one makes her invincible to battle, the second one makes it so you don’t take damage from battle with her, and the final power up makes her reverse damage to the opponent, so the bigger their monster the better for you. That’s actually kind of neat. Don’t mess with mama.

Looks like I was wrong, these Melffy have a third XYZ monster. This one has the effect you can basically paralyze your opponent’s monsters (I guess they get lost in the woods or something). It seems like these guys are at their best when working together.

This one might be the cutest one yet. Also, I think the flower and heart thing is a recurring motif with these guys. I love that he’s blushing, it’s so cute. This one differs from the Cat and the Fox in that you can only summon level 2 or lower beasts with it. I guess you use this one to tutor up the Fox or the Cat, and then use them for your big beasts.

I swear these Melffy’s are just getting cuter and cuter. I would own plushies of all of all of them, but they just seem so… out of place as Yu-Gi-Oh monsters. I mean, this is the game that gave us the Dark Magician, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Obelisk the Tormentor, and now we got Melffy Puppy. Can you imagine someone rolling up with these guys in a deck to a tournament in the show’s universe? Actually, that may just happen. Is there a Yu-Gi-Oh anime going on right now?

This one isn’t even an effect monster, just a vanilla. Still, 2100 defense is pretty good for a level 2 monster. It’ll stop most level 4 monsters in its tracks. Also, the flavor text makes it clear this is meant to be a storybook sort of thing. (It does kind of annoy me though that only vanilla monsters get flavor text in Yu-Gi-Oh).

That covers the Melffy creatures. Now for the spells/traps.

Yep, just keep endlessly recycle your Melffy and other Beasts and keep sending them into your deck. The fun will never end!

Yeah, I think this is your finisher. You load mommy up with a bunch of Materials, then you use this to detach them all, bounce your opponent’s monsters, then just hit them in the face with a 3500 strong Mommy. DIDN’T I TELL YOU NOT TO MESS WITH MOMMY?

I think this one speaks for itself.

So that was the Melffy archetype, a very VERY strange weird archetype, but at least I understood it better than the Dragonmaids, which were very confusing with how they worked. I’d probably have to see a Dragonmaid deck in action to figure out all out, or at the very least play one. But the Melffy deck seems to rely on having other beasts in your deck to back them up.

That does it for this week’s King of Games. What will I be covering next week? Who knows? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But until then, remember to believe in the heart of the cards.